Pages 126-147A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5 Part 1, Arundel Rape: South-Western Part, Including Arundel. 1825, however, the date of opening of a chain ferry across the Arun, the south-eastern portion was more closely connected with Littlehampton, and most aspects of its later history are therefore reserved for treatment elsewhere. One section of the Ryebank rife, which drains the southern part of the parish, was claimed in 1310 as the boundary between Cudlow and Ilsham; (fn. 1310 and the Ryebank rife, also called 'the great ditch' in 1606 (fn. 30) seem to be artificial, they may be pre-medieval estate boundaries. 97) In 1843 three or four flanked a lane along the south-east side of the churchyard. 98) Other sites of medieval settlement were at Cudlow and Ilsham. 287) and was succeeded before 1664, perhaps before 1651, by his son Abraham. 333) and the new stone is matching honey-coloured Somerset limestone, setting off the Caen stone re-used from the original building. The rooms were decorated with panelling and tapestries, the furniture being partly genuine antiques and partly fake medieval pieces, even cutlery being designed in medieval style. 342) Between 19 Lord and Lady Moyne created a new park at Bailiffscourt, extending northwards as far as the Ryebank rife and along the coast in both directions, westwards almost as far as the parish boundary. 359) had made over their estate to the earl by 1356. 360) At earl Richard's death Cudlow passed to his younger son Sir John d'Arundel, Lord Arundel (d.
Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1997. 13) One or more occupiers of the Bailiffscourt estate in the 16th century wished to be buried at Littlehampton, (fn. 27) what was apparently the same section continued until 1880 to divide Climping from the outlier of Littlehampton containing Bailiffscourt. The western part of the ancient parish, including the settlements of Climping, Ilsham, and Atherington, (fn. Cudlow, which may represent secondary settlement, (fn. 109) which apparently indicates marshy land overgrown with brushwood, (fn. 118) which is not related to any manorial estate, is of two storeys with attics; it has a square plan and is built of knapped flint with red brick dressings and brick mullioned windows. At least one early guest found the attempt to recreate medieval living conditions ludicrous, the rooms small, badly lit, and uncomfortable, and the guest rooms suggesting nothing so much as 'the cell of a rather "pansy" monk'. 335) The so-called guest house, also of stone but thatched, which lies detached to the west, is reached by an underground passage. About 1,500 grown trees, mostly oak and ash, were transported then and later from Slindon, Madehurst, and Arundel to form belts of woodland both within the park and elsewhere on the estate. 343) A new drive to the house was laid out from the north-west, crossing the moat through the re-erected gatehouse. 344) A five-mile route round the estate was known as Lady Moyne's walk. 345) The manor of was held of the honor of Arundel, (fn. 350) Geoffrey de Fresteng evidently had the manor in 1257, (fn. 354) Luke or his namesake still had the manor in 1300, (fn. 356) Another Luke de Vienne had it between 1325 (fn. 358) but had died by 1349-50 when his son John conveyed it, subject to his mother Lettice's life interest, to Richard Fitz Alan, earl of Arundel (d. 1379), who was succeeded in the direct line by John (d.
The ford was said to be only rarely usable in 1679, (fn. 178) The Climping-Yapton road was closed between 19 with the enlargement of Ford airfield. 179) The swing bridge over the Arun was replaced in the early 1970s by a pedestrian bridge of high section, a fixed road bridge with a new access road being built 700 yd. In 1992 buses passed through the parish between Portsmouth, Bognor Regis, and Chichester, and Worthing and Brighton. 202) so that most of the parish, except for the south-east corner, then belonged to it. 203) Church and Kent's farms were sold to the Dennis Estates Ltd. 204) and Northwood farm was bought then or soon afterwards by John Langmead (d. 1940), whose executors sold it in 1941, when it had 154 a., to the tenant W.
171) but in the early 19th century the shingle bar outside the piers of Littlehampton harbour provided a passage for wagons and carriages several hours a day, though it could be treacherous; it was used, among others, by the millers of Climping, Littlehampton, and Rustington. 172) A chain ferry across the Arun was set up under an Act of 1824, with a tollgate on the Climping side of the river. 173) The straight road called Ferry Road was made to give access to it, and a new road, later known as West Ground Lane or Grevatt's Lane, was provided at the same time at the west end of the parish to link Climping with Felpham and Bognor. 174) The ferry was replaced in 1908 by a swing bridge, of which the vicar of Climping was a chief promoter; (fn. 1824 were acquired by Littlehampton urban district council. 176) On both occasions the owner or owners of Bailiffscourt farm were granted exemption from tolls, in 1905 in return for conveying land required. 177) A short section of the Bognor Regis to Littlehampton road east of Church Lane was bypassed .
309) In 1606 the building was said to be old and covered with Horsham slates; (fn. 312) which survived in 1991, is of flint with stone dressings. in the field called 'Horgesleye' at Stroodland in Ilsham, (fn. On the Ilsham section of the manor at the same date eight copyholders held between 19 a. 506) in 1991 the land was worked from buildings at various places in the parish. mostly in Climping but, the farmhouse having been sold, was then farmed from Yapton.
374) which was later administered by the abbey's English priory of Lyminster. 375) The estate, as that of an alien priory, passed in the 15th century to Eton college. 376) In 1248 it comprised the great tithes of what was then Climping parish, a pension of £5, and land. 377) The pension is not heard of again but the land, then described as 9 a. By 1564 one holding lying apparently in both Climping and Ford, of which part had been inned recently, totalled over 100 a. 407) In 1608 and 48 cottars in all on the two estates called Climping in 1086. 409) Later medieval tenants of Ford, Climping, and Ilsham manor within the parish were not separately listed from those in Ford. 410) In 1540 some copyholders in Climping held whole or half yardlands. 411) Only one freeholder remained in 1608, but there were then many copyholders. each, mostly for three lives, a typical holding consisting of arable, inclosed pasture, and meadow in Climping mead. 433) presumably including the Shortsmare, described as Lammas land in 1606. 434) At the same date Atherington mead northeast of Atherington hamlet had 19 a. each, typically including open-field arable, inclosed pasture, and rights in Atherington mead. 494) and the number of shepherds listed rose from four in 1861 to nine in 1881. 495) In the early 20th century sheep were brought for fattening from West Dean north of Chichester. 496) In 1914 the Langmead farms were specially noted: Kent's with Hobb's for its Southdown flock, and Atherington with Bailiffscourt for sheep, cattle, and prize-winning crops. 497) The Atherington flock was later moved to Northwood farm. 498) The bigger farms employed large numbers of labourers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 504) when Church farm was claimed to have some of the most fertile land in southern England. 505) Bailiffscourt farm in the 1970s and 80s had 800-860 a., the tenant in 1979 and later also farming at Oving near Chichester; (fn. 1990 farming in the parish was again chiefly arable, crops including potatoes, oilseed rape, and linseed. 509) In addition market gardening was practised from the 1950s, chiefly south of Horsemere Green Lane. 510) One holding which flourished between 19 grew cucumbers under glass with a staff of eight. A steam engine had been added to supplement wind power by 1895, but the mill ceased to be used soon afterwards.
140) and a light railway from Ford to the west end of the bridge was projected in 1920. 141) In 1924 a syndicate was proposing to develop the parish as a residential seaside resort, (fn. 1925 the proprietor of Tortington Park school built Poole Place near the Middleton boundary for her pupils' swimming expeditions, it was apparently in expectation that the area would be developed like neighbouring Middleton. 143) However, as a result of Lord Moyne's purchase of the Bailiffscourt estate in 1927 the southern part of the parish was preserved from building as the largest open area of coast between Bognor Regis and Brighton, known in 1996 as the Climping gap. At an unknown date it belonged to John Pecche, (fn. 262) In 1546 the hospital's lands in Ilsham were granted by the Crown to Sir Richard Lee, who granted them in the same year to John and Edward Staker in trust for Edward's son John. 263) In the early 17th century the lands were held successively by John Staker (d. It seems likely, in view of the presence of windows on the north side of the building, that it was originally freestanding. 366) About 1897, when the land was called Atherington farm, it was bought by Christ's Hospital, (fn. There are moulded arches to the window splays inside with carved foliage capitals, and a restored double piscina. 4) in fact occupied an east-west strip across the centre of the present parish including the sites of Hobb's Farm, the school, and Brookpits Manor. 5) The area of Climping parish expanded as longshore drift caused the mouth of the river Arun to be deflected eastwards. 10) but it may not have been established until the 14th century, since though Bailiffscourt was apparently the 2 yardlands in Littlehampton mentioned separately as belonging to Sees in 1341 (fn. Since the alluvium between Atherington and the brickearth outlier to the east can only have been brought by the river, the main channel of the river is likely once to have run there and to have been deflected eastwards later. 32) The landscape history of the south-eastern corner of the ancient parish is not clear, for two reasons. 41) which in 1792 were flooded at every spring tide. 42) The parish of Cudlow, at least in its eastern portion, may represent the early medieval expansion of settlement over reclaimed land in the lower part of the Arun estuary: the manor does not appear in Domesday Book, and the church seems to have originated as a chapelry of Climping. 43) The port which existed there in the 13th and 14th centuries has not been located, but in the 16th century the estuary was said to have two 'havens', Littlehampton and Cudlow, the second of which may have lain in the putative former channel of the river west of Climping mill. 44) By the 1360s the lord's income from agistment in the Cudlow demesne brooks had been reduced by flooding, (fn. 1790, when the cost of maintaining the defences was greater than the income from the land. 54) which according to one observer had done great damage to the shore east of them. 55) The defences themselves were badly damaged in a gale in 1875, (fn. 1897 Christ's Hospital acquired the south-west corner of the parish as the only way of protecting its adjacent lands. 57) In 1901 the hospital took a 21-year lease from the Crown of the foreshore of that part of the parish, (fn. 68) perhaps before 1785, when a later duke leased to William Bolton land outside the 'sea wall' which Bolton had made at his own expense. 69) It survived as an important landscape feature in 1991. 72) The land north of them, known as East Cudlow farm, (fn. 83) the beach was a popular goal for summer day visitors from London and elsewhere. 84) The parish seems generally to have had little woodland, and the woods on the two estates called Climping which supported 40 swine in 1086 may have been in the Weald. 85) The wood at Atherington on the boundary with Middleton mentioned . 86) was probably the same as Southwood depicted in 1606, (fn. of woods in Climping and the detached portion of Littlehampton at Bailiffscourt in the 1840s. 90) The amount was greatly increased in the 1920s and 30s by Lord Moyne, of Bailiffscourt, who planted belts of fully grown trees all over the southern half of the parish, including a wide one along the Middleton boundary. 91) Many of the trees were destroyed in the great storm of 1987. 92) The park in Climping belonging to Ford, Climping, and Ilsham manor and the successive parks at Bailiffscourt are described below. 93) There may also have been a park at Cudlow, where free warren was granted or confirmed to the earl of Arundel in 1617. 94) Settlement in the parish has always apparently been scattered. 101) it probably occupied a southwards extension of the brickearth outlier at Climping mill. 102) The reduction of its tax assessment by nearly half in 1450 was probably due to the inroads of the sea, (fn. By 1914 the house was divided into two cottages, (fn. 276) and 1621 or later it was leased to members of the Baldwin otherwise Edmunds family. 277) Marshland belonging to the manor was let in parcels to various people, (fn. After the Second World War the house was let with all its contents and run as a 'medieval' hotel. 337) After changing hands it remained a hotel in 1994. 338) Sées abbey was granted free warren on its demesne at Atherington in 1272. 339) There was a park, whose site is indicated by the field names the Plain and perhaps the Parrock north-west of Bailiffscourt house in 1606. Construction of a new estuary under an Act of 1733 (fn. 7) but the boundary between Climping and Littlehampton was not adjusted until 1840. First, the chronology of the eastward deflection of the lower course of the river Arun is uncertain, the notion of a long lagoon south of the present coastline, sheltered by a spit running from Selsey to a point off Worthing, (fn. Secondly, references to incursions by the sea and to sea defences on Atherington manor may sometimes be actually to the river estuary, since the expression 'sea wall' () used there was also employed at Ford, Climping, and Ilsham manor, (fn. In the north-eastern part of the parish reclamation from the estuary was apparently going on by the 13th century, when the rectory estate included land east of the village () of Climping bounded on three sides by ditches. 35) By the mid 16th century there were defences in that area against the river. 36) Further south some marshland had been reclaimed by the early 16th century on Atherington manor, where a defensive wall, presumably meaning an earth bank, was mentioned in 1511; (fn. 45) which together with erosion continued later to such a degree as to render the living by 1511 a sinecure. 46) By the late 15th century Atherington manor was suffering a decrease in rent income through the incursions of the sea, (fn. 58) the sewers commissioners being responsible in 1914 for the rest. The present embankment beside the river itself throughout the parish was apparently heightened under an Act of 1793. 70) Meanwhile along the coast in the south-eastern corner of the parish a line of low dunes had been formed, perhaps by the later 17th century (fn. 87) but in 1378 there was only enough underwood on Atherington manor for fencing. 88) Southwood and two other closes within or beside Bailiffscourt park were described in 1606 as thorny pasture. Only a handful of dwellings, including Church Farmhouse and the former vicarage house, remained in 1990 near the church, but earthworks in two closes to south-east and east, yielding finds of medieval and Romano-British date, indicate the existence there of other house sites. 103) and dwellings were apparently being abandoned in the 1460s. 104) Only two men were listed in Cudlow tithing in the muster roll of 1539. 119) as it remained until extensive restoration as a single dwelling between 19. 120) At the centre of Kent's Farmhouse, south-west of Brookpits, is a long late 17th-century range of flint rubble with brick dressings; it has a large chimneystack at its north-western end, and possibly faced south-east. 278) but by 1606 all the leases had apparently passed to Walter Edmunds. 279) In 1599 the manor was granted by the Crown to Sir John Spencer, (fn.